Font piracy – December 5, 2000

London, 5th December 2000.

Expert Systems, the US consumer software pubisher, has agreed to pay Linotype Library an undisclosed sum in damages and costs in an out-of-court settlement over Linotype’s claims that the Expert product 2000 Fantastic Fonts had infringed the UK copyright in a number of Linotype fonts.

In April this year, Linotype Library brought High Court proceedings against Hasbro subsidiary, Microprose Limited. Microprose had licensed the product from Expert prior to its acquisition by Hasbro. Expert subsequently joined Microprose as a defendant in the case.

Linotype had discovered that thirty fonts on the 2000 Fantastic Font CD-ROM infringed its copyright. The fonts were from the Linotype Library typeface families: Arcadia™, Gazette™, Duc de Berry™, Herculanum™ and Pilgrim™. As well as agreeing to pay Linotype a fair sum in damages and costs, Expert and Microprose have also agreed to remove the infringing fonts from existing and future products.

Bruno Steinert, general manager of Linotype Library headquartered in Bad Homburg near Frankfurt,Germany commented: "This is not the first time that we have been able to enforce ownership over the intellectual property rights contained in our fonts according to UK copyright law. Fonts are our business and that of the respected designers we work with world-wide. Our fonts are manufactured to the highest standards of quality and usability for professionals and it concerns me greatly that we are continually finding pirated versions in low ost consumer-focused products. I am pleased that we have managed to reach agreement with Expert in this case and hope that it reinforces our position of zero-tolerance of font-piracy, whoever is making and selling unlicensed versions of our designs."

Linotype GmbH – a subsidiary of the Heidelberg Group – offers one of the largest font libraries of original-cut typefaces using today’s state of the art technology.
To date there are more than 4700 PostScript and TrueType fonts available for Mac and PC and the Linotype FontExplorer, on CD or on the Internet, makes them accessible anytime, anywhere.